Wednesday was meant to be my penultimate day of cycling to work in Edinburgh.
It didn't start well. Coming down the final stretch of road before my destination, a fast downhill at about 20mph, three separate cars in the space of 300m either didn't look or didn't give a damn and pulled out in front of my brightly lit, fluorescently clad but still very vulnerable self.
Cyclists, from the motorist's point of view, can be very annoying. They are slow (relatively speaking), they can be inconsiderate, they sometimes weave in and out of traffic or run red lights. Newsflash: apart from the slowness (and even that's optional), road users in cars are guilty of all these things and more. Whatever their faults, cyclists are also helping to reduce congestion, carbon emissions and NHS costs. Most importantly, they are fellow road users and uniquely vulnerable road users. The Highway Code accords them all the rights of motorists (except going on motorways and dual carriageways) and a few more that reflect that vulnerability.
Why is it, then, that so many motorists forget that?
The day didn't end well, either, though in a different sort of way. No marauding cars this time, but a short way into my journey there was a sproing, followed by a whoosh. My wheel had buckled, one of the spokes had broken and shot up through the tyre, ripping both the inner and outer. I was able to fix the tyre, but it left me with a dilemma. If one spoke had gone, another was likely to go. Should I finish my ride, or give up and go by train?
I didn't want to lose one of my remaining chances at getting some training in, and I figured I could make the bike last at least for the rest of the ride. I decided to carry on. I thought the wheel would last, and the bike is booked in for a service tomorrow anyway. I was almost right. I got within sight of the hotel: Sproing! Whoosh! A second spoke, a second puncture, a rather more badly buckled wheel. It could be an expensive service.
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Thursday, 13 December 2012
ePetition to protect services for deaf children
If you're bothered by the statistics I've quoted, you might also like to know that the NDCS is sponsoring a government epetition.
Many local authorities are cutting services for the deaf as part of the austerity drive, and in many cases this isn't even being clearly communicated. While difficult choices have to be made, these cuts run the risk of depriving deaf children of access to services they need in order to live a normal life - something I would regard as a basic human right.
The petition has passed 10,000 signatures, which forced the Department for Education to post a rather insipid response. The next target is 100,000 signatures, which would put it on the agenda for consideration by the Backbench Business Committee and might lead to some action.
Even if you can't support the NDCS with a donation, you can sign the petition here.
First snows of the winter commute
Snow in Edinburgh this morning, which added a different and slightly eerie dimension to my ride into work along the Union Canal.
For those of you who don't know it, the canal has something of a dual personality (perhaps Jekyll and Hyde would be a more apposite reference) at the best of times. It runs from the centre of Edinburgh out to at least Falkirk (though I've never been that far) and, as I might have mentioned before, being artificial and created by Scots engineers it runs along the tops of ridges and over viaducts and suchlike. At the city centre end, it can be quite beautiful, lit with little cats eyes on the side of the path and winding past playing fields and big old houses. It's flat, quiet and safely away from cars and buses.
The Mr Hyde quality emerges in narrow cobbled strips where it runs under bridges, and chicanes created by pairs of iron gates that are poorly illuminated, painted black and only sparsely decorated with reflective material. In the dark, you can only tell where they are by the brutal speed bumps either side of them (or in one case, a double set of speed bumps on one side only. Did someone forget to put the gate in the right place?). Edinburgh is also, it seems, home to many people who like nothing more than walking on a narrow path shared with cyclists in near-darkness wearing drab clothes. I haven't hit one. Yet.
Further along, there's an old viaduct with a long strip of especially narrow and slippery cobbles, after which the lighting runs out for several hundred metres. The first time I encountered this stretch, armed only with a totally inadequate urban front light (for "being seen" rather than "seeing"), was the closest I have come to identifying with Luke Skywalker [1], [2].
Anyway, today the snow had gently settled on the path without having time to thaw and refreeze. It was benign to cycle on (though I still trod gingerly over the viaduct), and reduced sound to the muffled hiss of wheels through soft snow. Alongside, the canal itself had frozen over for the full length of my ride and gained its own covering of snow (leading to the unusual sight of swans' takeoff and landing tracks preserved on the surface of the canal). Overhead, the snow clouds reflected a soft grey glow in the early light.
It was like riding through a gentle dream that constantly threatened to head off into David Lynch territory, but never quite did. That can wait for when the bottom layer of snow's had time to refreeze into a slick sheet of black ice...
[1] "How can I ride it when I can't even see it?" "Use the force, Luke"
[2] Lightsabres are kind of cool, but give me a good blaster anyday.
For those of you who don't know it, the canal has something of a dual personality (perhaps Jekyll and Hyde would be a more apposite reference) at the best of times. It runs from the centre of Edinburgh out to at least Falkirk (though I've never been that far) and, as I might have mentioned before, being artificial and created by Scots engineers it runs along the tops of ridges and over viaducts and suchlike. At the city centre end, it can be quite beautiful, lit with little cats eyes on the side of the path and winding past playing fields and big old houses. It's flat, quiet and safely away from cars and buses.
The Mr Hyde quality emerges in narrow cobbled strips where it runs under bridges, and chicanes created by pairs of iron gates that are poorly illuminated, painted black and only sparsely decorated with reflective material. In the dark, you can only tell where they are by the brutal speed bumps either side of them (or in one case, a double set of speed bumps on one side only. Did someone forget to put the gate in the right place?). Edinburgh is also, it seems, home to many people who like nothing more than walking on a narrow path shared with cyclists in near-darkness wearing drab clothes. I haven't hit one. Yet.
Further along, there's an old viaduct with a long strip of especially narrow and slippery cobbles, after which the lighting runs out for several hundred metres. The first time I encountered this stretch, armed only with a totally inadequate urban front light (for "being seen" rather than "seeing"), was the closest I have come to identifying with Luke Skywalker [1], [2].
Anyway, today the snow had gently settled on the path without having time to thaw and refreeze. It was benign to cycle on (though I still trod gingerly over the viaduct), and reduced sound to the muffled hiss of wheels through soft snow. Alongside, the canal itself had frozen over for the full length of my ride and gained its own covering of snow (leading to the unusual sight of swans' takeoff and landing tracks preserved on the surface of the canal). Overhead, the snow clouds reflected a soft grey glow in the early light.
It was like riding through a gentle dream that constantly threatened to head off into David Lynch territory, but never quite did. That can wait for when the bottom layer of snow's had time to refreeze into a slick sheet of black ice...
[1] "How can I ride it when I can't even see it?" "Use the force, Luke"
[2] Lightsabres are kind of cool, but give me a good blaster anyday.
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
Bonus post: a thought experiment
Imagine there's something different about you. Maybe no-one can tell just from looking at you, but it makes it a little bit harder for you to join in fully. You don't fully understand everything that other people do.
What you do understand is that you could join in, you could do everything that people who aren't different can do - if you had the right help and support and if people around you understood a little more about you.
But you don't, and they don't. And so, in effect, you become a second class citizen. You are less likely to reach the same educational level, less likely to achieve your potential, more vulnerable and more likely to suffer. And all of these things are completely unnecessary.
Let's give this difference a name. Call it race, or sex, or belief, or sexual orientation. We haven't yet achieved equality or fairness for people whose difference has one of those names, but at least the problem is visible, and the need for change is well understood, and as a society we are committed to changing things.
Let's try another name. The issue of deafness is largely invisible: did you realise how vulnerable young deaf people are before you read my blog or the NDCS's website? The need for change is not well understood, so almost by definition our society is not committed to change. The NDCS exists to change that.
Please give generously.
What you do understand is that you could join in, you could do everything that people who aren't different can do - if you had the right help and support and if people around you understood a little more about you.
But you don't, and they don't. And so, in effect, you become a second class citizen. You are less likely to reach the same educational level, less likely to achieve your potential, more vulnerable and more likely to suffer. And all of these things are completely unnecessary.
Let's give this difference a name. Call it race, or sex, or belief, or sexual orientation. We haven't yet achieved equality or fairness for people whose difference has one of those names, but at least the problem is visible, and the need for change is well understood, and as a society we are committed to changing things.
Let's try another name. The issue of deafness is largely invisible: did you realise how vulnerable young deaf people are before you read my blog or the NDCS's website? The need for change is not well understood, so almost by definition our society is not committed to change. The NDCS exists to change that.
Please give generously.
Two tests
The trip is looming ahead of me like the south face of Aconcagua itself [1]. In a month's time, if all goes well and my calculations are right, we will climb from Nido de Condores (5,560m [2]) to Camp Berlin (5,930m) ready for an attempt on the summit the next day, weather permitting [3].
At times like this, a not-quite-so-young-as-he-once-was man's thoughts turn to one thing [4]: am I in any kind of shape to do this?
Fortunately, the last two days have offered me two reasonable tests. Last night Leah scored tickets for the recording of the Christmas edition of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" [6] [7], which found me in a long queue for the lifts at Russell Square. It was a golden opportunity to ignore the dire warnings [8] on the stairwell and climb. As far as I can tell, it was a 57m climb up that tightly spiralling stair case. I managed it without stopping, and without getting particularly out of breath.
Not bad. But from the start of the walk to the top of Aconcagua is about 70 times that. That's a 1,053 storey building [10].
So tonight, I hopped on the treadmill in the hotel gym, jacked it up to 15 degrees, and yomped [12] away for 40 minutes at 5 km/h. While carrying a 35lb pack [13] and wearing a cycling mask [14]. Job done.
Feeling a little more confident now. But see footnote [17].
[1] Not that I will be going up the south face, you understand, though one of the early acclimatisation walks will be a trip to see it up close.
[2] Which is, almost to the metre, the highest altitude I have ever reached - at Kala Pattar on my trek to Everest Base Camp. Everything beyond this will be - for me - terra incognita.
[3] If you'd like to follow the weather on Aconcagua, you can do it here. Pretty scary, eh? In theory, it should get better as we get to high (Southern hemisphere) summer in January.
[4] And for once it's not kit. [5]
[5] Though I have ordered a new insulated Camelbak, insulated covers for my water bottles, stuff sacks for, well, stuff, and some skincare stuff. The psychologist in me knows that this is displacement activity, but it's still nice to have new kit.
[6] Very funny, especially the Hamish and Dougal sound charade of "Towering Inferno". Catch it on Christmas Eve if you can.
[7] It was, apparently, the first time that tickets had been allocated by ballot - 19,000 applications for just over 900 seats. Not entirely sure I believe them. Except about the number of seats.
[8] "175 steps! As high as a 15 storey building! Please, for your own sake, wait for the lifts. If you ignore us and climb the stairs, not only will you have only yourself to blame for the consequences, but all the staff will stand around pointing at you and laughing." [9]
[9] I'm pretty sure that's what it said.
[10] Imagine having to wait for that lift [11]
[11] Unless you were Tom Cruise in Mission:Impossible and could just climb up the outside.
[12] Are you old enough to remember yomping? That really dates us both, I'm afraid.
[13] 16 kilos, if we're being consistent. But it sounds like more if I say 35lbs.
[14] In my mind, I was rocking the Tom Hardy look, but in the gym mirrors [15] it was more Tom Lardy
[15] I mean why? Just why? Have you ever met anyone who actually looks good in the gym mirrors? [16]
[16] And if you did, I bet you didn't ask them out. Too self conscious. All those bloody mirrors. [17]
[17] Excessive footnoting is another displacement activity. I guess I'm not really that confident after all.
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Thank you...
My latest fundraising email went out last night and the response has been fantastic. Thanks to Kathryn, Howard, Claire, Iain, Hugo, Geoff, the West-Marwoods, Sarah, Martin and an anonymous donor, we're now at £2,845.
In mountain terms, that moves us from the tip of South America to the Chilean Central Valley, and to a couple of metres below the summit of Villarica, one of Chile's most active volcanoes. We're now only about 400 miles from Aconcagua itself, and in terms of the trek I would be nearing the start of the Horcones Valley, where the first day of actual walking begins.
I'll hit that point on 2 January - so here's a challenge for you.Can we raise enough funds that each day in December we match the altitude of the campsite for each equivalent day in January? If we add in the Gift Aid we've raised, we're just shy of Confluencia (£3,390), which I'll reach on 3 January. But from 4th to 9th January we will make our base camp at Plaza de Mulas [1] - £4,350. [2]
Do you think we can make it? Of course we can. I believe in you all.
[1] So named because it's the highest place that mules will go to. Up til that point, a beast of burden can carry your gear, but from then on you're lugging it yourself.
[2] We won't just be hanging out there for 5 days - there are a couple of rest days, but mainly we will be doing acclimatisation trips to climb Cerro Bonete (5,004m) and carry equipment and food to Plaza Canada (£5,050) - the next campsite.
In mountain terms, that moves us from the tip of South America to the Chilean Central Valley, and to a couple of metres below the summit of Villarica, one of Chile's most active volcanoes. We're now only about 400 miles from Aconcagua itself, and in terms of the trek I would be nearing the start of the Horcones Valley, where the first day of actual walking begins.
I'll hit that point on 2 January - so here's a challenge for you.Can we raise enough funds that each day in December we match the altitude of the campsite for each equivalent day in January? If we add in the Gift Aid we've raised, we're just shy of Confluencia (£3,390), which I'll reach on 3 January. But from 4th to 9th January we will make our base camp at Plaza de Mulas [1] - £4,350. [2]
Do you think we can make it? Of course we can. I believe in you all.
[1] So named because it's the highest place that mules will go to. Up til that point, a beast of burden can carry your gear, but from then on you're lugging it yourself.
[2] We won't just be hanging out there for 5 days - there are a couple of rest days, but mainly we will be doing acclimatisation trips to climb Cerro Bonete (5,004m) and carry equipment and food to Plaza Canada (£5,050) - the next campsite.
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Four weeks to go
Only four weeks to go. In 28 days' time, I should be camped at Confluencia (named for being at the junction of two of Aconcagua's rivers), getting some rest before trekking to view the vast South Face of the mountain as an acclimatisation exercise.
Training is going well. I can now complete most of the ride between my office and hotel in the highest gear I've got available (there is a higher one, but I can't select it until I've got time to get the bike serviced. Cable trouble). Two weeks ago, I couldn't manage to sustain that level of effort for that long. The only trouble is that Edinburgh's entered a period of alternating rain and cold, which makes some parts of my usual route treacherous. The long, narrow, cobbled, cambered footpath along the viaduct is particularly nerve-wracking, but even the ungritted turning onto the path is dicey. I came off this evening, and decided to ride back on the roads instead.
As it gets closer, I wanted to take a moment to remind you of my fundraising. The trip is a private one and I am paying for all the costs ourselves, but I wanted to use the
opportunity to raise money for the National Deaf Children’s Society. My
youngest daughter Cora is hearing impaired, but she’s one of the lucky ones: once she’s old enough for
treatment on her glue ear, she should be able to live a normal life.
Deafness is not a learning disability and with proper support deaf children can do anything that other children can. There are 45,000 deaf children in the UK, and around
1,600 more born every year. Many of them are not as lucky as Cora. The statistics are truly shocking:
- 65% of deaf children fail to achieve 5 A*-C grades at GCSE
- Deaf children are 60% more likely to suffer mental health problems
- Deaf children are more than twice as likely to be abused as other children.
My target is £6,962 – the height of
the mountain - and everything I raise will go to the NDCS. We are 35% of the way there. Please do give generously.
Thanks in advance, on behalf of Cora and other
hearing-impaired children.
Jason
Sunday, 2 December 2012
30 days to go...
Ulp.
It's butterflies in the stomach time. Last Friday marked the one-month-to-go point. In a little over 4 weeks, Jeremy and I will board a flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires. The following morning, we'll land in Argentina, and (one hopes) reclaim our baggage. Then the fun begins...
Step one: Getting to Mendoza. Not, sadly, as easy as following the signs for "Flight Connections". Buenos Aires has two airports - one international and one domestic. So, job one is to find our way across an unfamiliar city armed only with a knowledge of Spanish so limited that it does not even encompass the correct pronunciation of "chorizo" [1]. Job two, armed only with the same Spanish, is to negotiate the excess baggage charges on my luggage, which, as you may recall, are likely to be substantial.
On arrival in Mendoza, we need to find the driver from Fernando Grajales (our guides), and then hare around the town getting our climbing permits. This process involves going to one office to pay the money and get a receipt, which then entitles you to go and get the permit itself somewhere entirely different [2]. Our window of opportunity to achieve this is apparently so narrow that we've been advised to do this straight from the airport rather than check in at our hotel first [3]. I strongly suspect that it will all be a bit fraught.
Still, we should have it all done in time to enjoy the turning of the year over a glass of red wine in the southern hemisphere summer. On New Year's Day day, we'll take a minibus to a resort called Penitentes. The real adventure begins the next day, with a long walk along the Horcones Valley to Confluencia, our first campsite. We start at 2,950m - by an odd coincidence, exactly the same altitude as the entrance to the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal - and climb to 3,390m - the height of Phunki Tenga, a village at a river crossing between Namche Bazaar and Tengboche.
Weirdly, many of the campsites on the route up Aconcagua map precisely to points on the trek to Everest Base Camp, which provides the comfort of knowing that I have already walked to most of the altitudes I will be visiting - excepting, obviously, the last couple of milestones.
Does this give me any additional comfort? Do I feel ready? In the last week, for the first time, I'm beginning to think that I might be. I've made two changes that have boosted my confidence.
Firstly, I've taken my trusty Brompton to Edinburgh with me, and I have been commuting between central Edinburgh and my client's offices in the South Gyle. After experimenting with a variety of routes, I've switched from going along the Western Approach Road and past Murrayfield [4], to riding along the Union Canal. This being Scotland, the country that brought us the Forth Bridge and the Falkirk Wheel, the Union Canal is not at the bottom of a valley. It's at the top of two long climbs, and there's a further climb to get from the canal to the top of Castle Hill - which gives me a decent workout on the bike on top of the basic ride.I already feel stronger and fitter from a couple of weeks of regular commuting.
Secondly, carrying excess weight up a mountain is A Bad Thing. Despite my efforts at training, I wasn't shifting the excess pounds that a year of working in India and not exercising had added to my waistline. For the last week or so, I've been Alternate Day Fasting. Which is almost exactly what it sounds like: odd-numbered days, eat normally, even numbered days, eat very little. It sounds extreme, but the evidence is that it has pretty big health benefits and I've been finding it surprisingly easy. On my fast days, I get by on water and endless cups of vending machine tea. It's early days yet, but I have lost a few pounds and I have to tighten my belt a bit more. More importantly, I feel better. Lighter on my feet, more agile. Perhaps surprisingly, more energetic. I carried my elder daughter up a hill in Richmond Park today and barely noticed the extra effort.
Am I ready? I don't know, but my confidence is growing.
[1] How about you? I always think I know, but my confidence, or perhaps my tongue, fails me at the last hurdle.
[2] And no, I don't know why either.
[3] Our fault - we're arriving a day later than we really ought to. Blame Christmas.
[4] The Western Approach Road is apparently verboten to cyclists, at least if the beeps from cars are anything to go by, although the only indication of this that I've been able to find on roadsigns is that all the bus lane signs have had the pictures of the bicycles covered over.
It's butterflies in the stomach time. Last Friday marked the one-month-to-go point. In a little over 4 weeks, Jeremy and I will board a flight from Heathrow to Buenos Aires. The following morning, we'll land in Argentina, and (one hopes) reclaim our baggage. Then the fun begins...
Step one: Getting to Mendoza. Not, sadly, as easy as following the signs for "Flight Connections". Buenos Aires has two airports - one international and one domestic. So, job one is to find our way across an unfamiliar city armed only with a knowledge of Spanish so limited that it does not even encompass the correct pronunciation of "chorizo" [1]. Job two, armed only with the same Spanish, is to negotiate the excess baggage charges on my luggage, which, as you may recall, are likely to be substantial.
On arrival in Mendoza, we need to find the driver from Fernando Grajales (our guides), and then hare around the town getting our climbing permits. This process involves going to one office to pay the money and get a receipt, which then entitles you to go and get the permit itself somewhere entirely different [2]. Our window of opportunity to achieve this is apparently so narrow that we've been advised to do this straight from the airport rather than check in at our hotel first [3]. I strongly suspect that it will all be a bit fraught.
Still, we should have it all done in time to enjoy the turning of the year over a glass of red wine in the southern hemisphere summer. On New Year's Day day, we'll take a minibus to a resort called Penitentes. The real adventure begins the next day, with a long walk along the Horcones Valley to Confluencia, our first campsite. We start at 2,950m - by an odd coincidence, exactly the same altitude as the entrance to the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal - and climb to 3,390m - the height of Phunki Tenga, a village at a river crossing between Namche Bazaar and Tengboche.
Weirdly, many of the campsites on the route up Aconcagua map precisely to points on the trek to Everest Base Camp, which provides the comfort of knowing that I have already walked to most of the altitudes I will be visiting - excepting, obviously, the last couple of milestones.
Does this give me any additional comfort? Do I feel ready? In the last week, for the first time, I'm beginning to think that I might be. I've made two changes that have boosted my confidence.
Firstly, I've taken my trusty Brompton to Edinburgh with me, and I have been commuting between central Edinburgh and my client's offices in the South Gyle. After experimenting with a variety of routes, I've switched from going along the Western Approach Road and past Murrayfield [4], to riding along the Union Canal. This being Scotland, the country that brought us the Forth Bridge and the Falkirk Wheel, the Union Canal is not at the bottom of a valley. It's at the top of two long climbs, and there's a further climb to get from the canal to the top of Castle Hill - which gives me a decent workout on the bike on top of the basic ride.I already feel stronger and fitter from a couple of weeks of regular commuting.
Secondly, carrying excess weight up a mountain is A Bad Thing. Despite my efforts at training, I wasn't shifting the excess pounds that a year of working in India and not exercising had added to my waistline. For the last week or so, I've been Alternate Day Fasting. Which is almost exactly what it sounds like: odd-numbered days, eat normally, even numbered days, eat very little. It sounds extreme, but the evidence is that it has pretty big health benefits and I've been finding it surprisingly easy. On my fast days, I get by on water and endless cups of vending machine tea. It's early days yet, but I have lost a few pounds and I have to tighten my belt a bit more. More importantly, I feel better. Lighter on my feet, more agile. Perhaps surprisingly, more energetic. I carried my elder daughter up a hill in Richmond Park today and barely noticed the extra effort.
Am I ready? I don't know, but my confidence is growing.
[1] How about you? I always think I know, but my confidence, or perhaps my tongue, fails me at the last hurdle.
[2] And no, I don't know why either.
[3] Our fault - we're arriving a day later than we really ought to. Blame Christmas.
[4] The Western Approach Road is apparently verboten to cyclists, at least if the beeps from cars are anything to go by, although the only indication of this that I've been able to find on roadsigns is that all the bus lane signs have had the pictures of the bicycles covered over.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Reasons to be cheerful
Do you remember how I said that Wikipedia didn't list Mountains in the Andes less than 4,000m high? Well, I was wrong. On another list, the fount of all modern knowledge takes a more catholic view of what constitutes an Andean mountain worthy of our attention.
And why, I hear you ask [1], is this significant? Well, since my last post, we've passed two very significant fundraising milestones. Thanks to very generous donations from Lisa, Ian, Laura, Tim and Ruth, we've reached £2,410 - over one third of the way to the summit of Aconcagua. Which means an even better milestone for our journey: we've reached South America, and the Andes.
Mount Sarmiento is a pyramidal peak [2] at the very tip of South America, in the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego. A glacial saddle has carved the peak into two distinct summits, and it's a beauty. Charles Darwin called it "the most sublime spectacle in Tierra del Fuego." What a way to arrive in South America.
We're also only £170 short of reaching the altitude of Penitentes [3], the resort where Jeremy and I will spend our last night of comfort before starting the trek.
To celebrate, it's time to launch my new fundraising initiative. I've had to make a few changes in fundraising plans over the last week or so. One of my proposed prize draw prizes proved to be unworkable, and a change of plans at work meant that a quiz I'd planned can't now happen in the way I'd intended. But the quiz itself was written, and that gave me an idea:
The virtual Christmas pub quiz [3]
I've put my quiz in a spreadsheet [4]. It's got six rounds:
1. Christmas Carols (and, in the interest of balance, one for the atheists as well)
2. Christmas Traditions
3. Christmas Tipples
4. The Man in the Red Suit
5. Mystery non-Christmassy Round
6. Mystery Christmassy Round.
7. Tiebreaker.
For most of the rounds, you even get the answers - all you have to do is match the right answer to the right question. And now the voices are telling me that you want to know how it works:
In the first step of Quizmas, assemble your quiz team. Then go to http://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Whyte-Aconcagua and donate £5 per team member (or more, if you like). [5]. Drop me an email at jason@jasonwhyte.com and I will send you the quiz. Fill in your team name and answers, send it back, and I will score it.
The highest scoring team whose answers I receive by midnight on 14 December will win a Christmassy goodie bag - and the more entries we get, the goodier the goodie bag gets.
Oh, I almost forgot. In a pub, people can rat on you if they catch you using your phone to look up the answers. I can't do that, and the temptation will be there. All of the questions on the spreadsheet bar the tiebreaker are very vulnerable to a quick trip to a well-known website that rhymes with frugal.
So I'm relying on your honesty. I'm also asking everyone to include the following declaration when they email me to ask for the quiz:
"I do solemnly declare that I shall not cheat or if I do I shall make an extra donation to the NDCS and that I shall if at all possible complete this in the true and proper manner of a pub quiz, with some drinks and some mates (who will each make a donation) and preferably in front of a roaring fire in an actual pub"
Enjoy.
[1] It's a common phenomenon for would-be mountaineers to hear voices in their head, though as any good statistician will tell you, correlation (two things happening together) does not imply causation (one of them makes the other one happen). In this case, for instance, my hypothesis is that the underlying cause of both "wanting to climb mountains" and "hearing voices" is "not being entirely there up top".
[2] The term used by geographers to describe a mountain sculpted by glaciers eating away at it from each side, producing the sharp-edged mountain shape that is for most of us the Platonic form of a mountain. Many of the world's most famous peaks are pyramidal, including Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn and dear old Snowdon.
[3] See earlier footnote. I reckon this one may have common cause with the other two, too.
[4] Because I'm a geek. Deal with it.
[5] But note that because you're getting a quiz - and possibly a prize - for it, you can't claim Gift Aid on it. HMRC have been known to audit donation websites for comments like "for my raffle ticket" or "for the quiz" and the charity can get into hot water if they find any with Gift Aid on them.
And why, I hear you ask [1], is this significant? Well, since my last post, we've passed two very significant fundraising milestones. Thanks to very generous donations from Lisa, Ian, Laura, Tim and Ruth, we've reached £2,410 - over one third of the way to the summit of Aconcagua. Which means an even better milestone for our journey: we've reached South America, and the Andes.
Mount Sarmiento is a pyramidal peak [2] at the very tip of South America, in the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego. A glacial saddle has carved the peak into two distinct summits, and it's a beauty. Charles Darwin called it "the most sublime spectacle in Tierra del Fuego." What a way to arrive in South America.
We're also only £170 short of reaching the altitude of Penitentes [3], the resort where Jeremy and I will spend our last night of comfort before starting the trek.
To celebrate, it's time to launch my new fundraising initiative. I've had to make a few changes in fundraising plans over the last week or so. One of my proposed prize draw prizes proved to be unworkable, and a change of plans at work meant that a quiz I'd planned can't now happen in the way I'd intended. But the quiz itself was written, and that gave me an idea:
The virtual Christmas pub quiz [3]
I've put my quiz in a spreadsheet [4]. It's got six rounds:
1. Christmas Carols (and, in the interest of balance, one for the atheists as well)
2. Christmas Traditions
3. Christmas Tipples
4. The Man in the Red Suit
5. Mystery non-Christmassy Round
6. Mystery Christmassy Round.
7. Tiebreaker.
For most of the rounds, you even get the answers - all you have to do is match the right answer to the right question. And now the voices are telling me that you want to know how it works:
In the first step of Quizmas, assemble your quiz team. Then go to http://www.justgiving.com/Jason-Whyte-Aconcagua and donate £5 per team member (or more, if you like). [5]. Drop me an email at jason@jasonwhyte.com and I will send you the quiz. Fill in your team name and answers, send it back, and I will score it.
The highest scoring team whose answers I receive by midnight on 14 December will win a Christmassy goodie bag - and the more entries we get, the goodier the goodie bag gets.
Oh, I almost forgot. In a pub, people can rat on you if they catch you using your phone to look up the answers. I can't do that, and the temptation will be there. All of the questions on the spreadsheet bar the tiebreaker are very vulnerable to a quick trip to a well-known website that rhymes with frugal.
So I'm relying on your honesty. I'm also asking everyone to include the following declaration when they email me to ask for the quiz:
"I do solemnly declare that I shall not cheat or if I do I shall make an extra donation to the NDCS and that I shall if at all possible complete this in the true and proper manner of a pub quiz, with some drinks and some mates (who will each make a donation) and preferably in front of a roaring fire in an actual pub"
Enjoy.
[1] It's a common phenomenon for would-be mountaineers to hear voices in their head, though as any good statistician will tell you, correlation (two things happening together) does not imply causation (one of them makes the other one happen). In this case, for instance, my hypothesis is that the underlying cause of both "wanting to climb mountains" and "hearing voices" is "not being entirely there up top".
[2] The term used by geographers to describe a mountain sculpted by glaciers eating away at it from each side, producing the sharp-edged mountain shape that is for most of us the Platonic form of a mountain. Many of the world's most famous peaks are pyramidal, including Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn and dear old Snowdon.
[3] See earlier footnote. I reckon this one may have common cause with the other two, too.
[4] Because I'm a geek. Deal with it.
[5] But note that because you're getting a quiz - and possibly a prize - for it, you can't claim Gift Aid on it. HMRC have been known to audit donation websites for comments like "for my raffle ticket" or "for the quiz" and the charity can get into hot water if they find any with Gift Aid on them.
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
A lucky escape
Sorry I haven't blogged for a while - we're nearing the end of the current phase of my project and I'm flat out at work, and last weekend was full of RFU. By which I mean that on Saturday we went en famille to the England v Fiji Autumn International (courtesy of the RFU's 2 for 1 and U16 offers) and on Sunday I completed the first phase of a Level 1 Coaching Children Ruby Union course.
Anyway, we've passed three momentous fundraising milestones in the past week. First a combination of Elaine, Anthony, Melinda and Izzy took us to the summit of Ben Nevis (and a little beyond), so we'd completed our tour of the UK.
Then I got confirmation of that I've been approved for a £750 grant from the Navigant Foundations. That took us into exciting and unknown territory. I'd promised you foreign mountains you've never heard of and can't pronounce... so how does Koschuta sound [1]? At 2,133m, it's the fourth highest mountain in the Karawanks [2], which are sandwiched between Austria and Slovenia and apparently one of the longest ranges in Europe.
Fortunately for the credibility of the expedition, Ian stepped in with a donation that has taken us to the summit of the far more respectable Mount Bistra in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Actually, I have to be more specific than that, because Wikipedia tells us that Bistra (Macedonian: Бистра) is one of the most interesting mountains in the Republic of Macedonia . The mountain has many peaks higher than 2,000 meters and the highest one is Medenica Peak, 2,163 meters above sea level.
So, interesting Medenica Peak it is. But even continental European mountains are puny in the face of the Andes. The Wikipedia page for the Andes doesn't even list mountains below 4,000m, and we are still nearly 300m below the start of the trek. I haven't even been able to see nearby marvel of geography Puente del Inca.
Do you want me to be stuck on that minibus for ever? Of course not. So you'll all be buying tickets for my prize draw, won't you? We've got 5 great prizes, worth about £1300:
[1] No, I don't know either
[2] Stop sniggering at the back
Anyway, we've passed three momentous fundraising milestones in the past week. First a combination of Elaine, Anthony, Melinda and Izzy took us to the summit of Ben Nevis (and a little beyond), so we'd completed our tour of the UK.
Then I got confirmation of that I've been approved for a £750 grant from the Navigant Foundations. That took us into exciting and unknown territory. I'd promised you foreign mountains you've never heard of and can't pronounce... so how does Koschuta sound [1]? At 2,133m, it's the fourth highest mountain in the Karawanks [2], which are sandwiched between Austria and Slovenia and apparently one of the longest ranges in Europe.
Fortunately for the credibility of the expedition, Ian stepped in with a donation that has taken us to the summit of the far more respectable Mount Bistra in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Actually, I have to be more specific than that, because Wikipedia tells us that Bistra (Macedonian: Бистра) is one of the most interesting mountains in the Republic of Macedonia . The mountain has many peaks higher than 2,000 meters and the highest one is Medenica Peak, 2,163 meters above sea level.
So, interesting Medenica Peak it is. But even continental European mountains are puny in the face of the Andes. The Wikipedia page for the Andes doesn't even list mountains below 4,000m, and we are still nearly 300m below the start of the trek. I haven't even been able to see nearby marvel of geography Puente del Inca.
Do you want me to be stuck on that minibus for ever? Of course not. So you'll all be buying tickets for my prize draw, won't you? We've got 5 great prizes, worth about £1300:
- A week in a holiday villa in Spain
- A case of vintage wine
- A newborn and child photography session, with a print and CD of images
- A custom-made corset (or a discount on a wedding dress)
- A family ticket to Big Game 5 - Harlequins vs London Irish on 29 December.
If you're interested, drop me a line for details of how to buy tickets.
[1] No, I don't know either
[2] Stop sniggering at the back
Thursday, 1 November 2012
A word on the NDCS
It occurs to me that, while I've typed quite a lot about my trek, I've not said much about the charity for whom I'm raising money. [1]
Our younger daughter, Cora, is now 20 months old. She does most of what you'd expect from a child of her age. She walks, she climbs, she runs, she falls over. She raids the fridge and makes a mess when feeding herself. She plays with her toys and her siblings. She seems to have an innate mastery of remote controls and takes delight in putting things in the rubbish bin (including, I suspect, a small camera that we haven't been able to find for several month). But she doesn't speak.
Her newborn hearing test picked up a problem, which was confirmed a few weeks later. It's not been formally diagnosed, but she has many of the characteristics of Branchio Oto Renal Syndrome, a genetic disorder in which structures in the ears, neck and kidneys fail to form properly during gestation. In Cora's case, the scans have revealed nothing wrong with her kidneys or neck, but she has no auditory nerve in her left ear. Her other ear is theoretically capable of hearing normally, bur she has a persistent case of glue ear - so most of the time she can't hear very much at all.
Resources are stretched in the NHS, and Cora's appointments with the specialists often end up being several months after they should have been (Concerned parent: "The doctor said we should come back in September" Harried receptionist: "I'm afraid the earliest I've got is November"). And while there are speech therapists who specialise in the very young, their priority is - rightly - with children who have worse problems than Cora.
Cora is lucky. When she's a little bigger, she should be fitted with grommets to drain the gunk. Once she can hear reliably with her good ear, she should get back on the developmental track, attend a mainstream school and lead a normal life. But we can't help worrying, and comparing her vocabulary with that of her sister at the same age. While Elspeth was by this point speaking in long, multi-clause run-on sentences that could take upwards of five minutes to complete, Cora's facility with language currently consists of: "No!", "No no no no no!", "Oh no!" (said with a Geordie accent, for no apparent reason), "Hullo!", possibly "Daddy!" and the British Sign Language signs for "drink", "hot" and "dog" (which indicates a set of practically all animals, including birds and her immediate family). In an otherwise talkative family, that's tough to cope with.
Which is where the National Deaf Children's Society comes in. In addition to campaigning for the rights of deaf children (one segment of society who, quite literally, cannot speak up for themselves), the NDCS offers resources and a community that helps the parents of children with hearing problems cope with and adapt to their child's disability. Learning that your child has a disability is bewildering and it is hard know what to do. Without the NDCS, we would probably still be struggling to understand how to help Cora now, and what to expect for the future. A helping hand and a way to reach other parents in the same situation means a great deal.
There are estimated to be over 45,000 deaf children in the UK. The NDCS has five fundamental beliefs about these children:
95% of the NDCS's funding comes from people's donations. Please give generously and help change the lives of the 1,600 hearing impaired children who are born in the UK each year.
[1] Important footnote: I'm paying for this adventure myself, in its entirety. None of your generosity will go towards Jason having what passes, in his slightly peculiar world, for a jolly. All of it will go to the National Deaf Children's Society. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
Our younger daughter, Cora, is now 20 months old. She does most of what you'd expect from a child of her age. She walks, she climbs, she runs, she falls over. She raids the fridge and makes a mess when feeding herself. She plays with her toys and her siblings. She seems to have an innate mastery of remote controls and takes delight in putting things in the rubbish bin (including, I suspect, a small camera that we haven't been able to find for several month). But she doesn't speak.
Her newborn hearing test picked up a problem, which was confirmed a few weeks later. It's not been formally diagnosed, but she has many of the characteristics of Branchio Oto Renal Syndrome, a genetic disorder in which structures in the ears, neck and kidneys fail to form properly during gestation. In Cora's case, the scans have revealed nothing wrong with her kidneys or neck, but she has no auditory nerve in her left ear. Her other ear is theoretically capable of hearing normally, bur she has a persistent case of glue ear - so most of the time she can't hear very much at all.
Resources are stretched in the NHS, and Cora's appointments with the specialists often end up being several months after they should have been (Concerned parent: "The doctor said we should come back in September" Harried receptionist: "I'm afraid the earliest I've got is November"). And while there are speech therapists who specialise in the very young, their priority is - rightly - with children who have worse problems than Cora.
Cora is lucky. When she's a little bigger, she should be fitted with grommets to drain the gunk. Once she can hear reliably with her good ear, she should get back on the developmental track, attend a mainstream school and lead a normal life. But we can't help worrying, and comparing her vocabulary with that of her sister at the same age. While Elspeth was by this point speaking in long, multi-clause run-on sentences that could take upwards of five minutes to complete, Cora's facility with language currently consists of: "No!", "No no no no no!", "Oh no!" (said with a Geordie accent, for no apparent reason), "Hullo!", possibly "Daddy!" and the British Sign Language signs for "drink", "hot" and "dog" (which indicates a set of practically all animals, including birds and her immediate family). In an otherwise talkative family, that's tough to cope with.
Which is where the National Deaf Children's Society comes in. In addition to campaigning for the rights of deaf children (one segment of society who, quite literally, cannot speak up for themselves), the NDCS offers resources and a community that helps the parents of children with hearing problems cope with and adapt to their child's disability. Learning that your child has a disability is bewildering and it is hard know what to do. Without the NDCS, we would probably still be struggling to understand how to help Cora now, and what to expect for the future. A helping hand and a way to reach other parents in the same situation means a great deal.
There are estimated to be over 45,000 deaf children in the UK. The NDCS has five fundamental beliefs about these children:
- Deaf children can do anything other children can do, given early diagnosis and the right support from the start.
- Deaf children should be involved in decisions that affect them at as early an age as possible.
- Families are the most important influence on deaf children and young people, and need clear, balanced information to make informed choices.
- Effective language and communication skills lie at the heart of deaf children and young people’s social, emotional and intellectual development.
- Deaf children should be valued by society and have the same opportunities as any other child.
- Deafness is not a learning disability, yet 65% of deaf children in England fail to achieve five GCSE grades A*-C (including English and maths).
- Deaf children are vulnerable to isolation, bullying and poor self-esteem.
- Deaf children are 60% more likely to experience mental health problems compared to other children.
- Deaf children are more than twice as likely to be abused as other children.
95% of the NDCS's funding comes from people's donations. Please give generously and help change the lives of the 1,600 hearing impaired children who are born in the UK each year.
[1] Important footnote: I'm paying for this adventure myself, in its entirety. None of your generosity will go towards Jason having what passes, in his slightly peculiar world, for a jolly. All of it will go to the National Deaf Children's Society. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
What goes up, must come down*
*except dead mountaineers.
Well, thanks once again for your donations. Courtesy of the generosity of Johnathan, James and Steve we are now tantalisingly close to the terra incognita of having to look for summits outside the British isles. Our current total places us comfortably into the realms of the 5 highest mountains in Britain. We're slightly higher than the summit of Sgor an Lochain Uaine (and no, I can't pronounce it either), just shy of the summits of Cairn Toul, Braerich and Ben Macdhui, and quite a way above the point on Ben Nevis when I realised I'd burnt myself out.
About 8 years ago, I did the Three Peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) in an earlier and less ambitious fundraising exercise. Up until that fateful trip, my approach to going up hills had been idiosyncratic, to say the least. I would go very fast for 5-10 minutes, then stop and get my breath back while everyone else in the party caught up. This technique worked very nicely for a long time and even worked for my first experience of proper altitude (an ascent of the 4,095m Mt Kinabalu on Borneo, which we did as part of our honeymoon), but I discovered on Ben Nevis that it relied on one critical assumption: that I was faster than the other people in my party.
The Three Peaks team included a couple of guys who'd recently been trekking in the Andes and who found my supposedly blistering uphill pace quick but sustainable. As a result, I didn't get my usual rest periods and somewhere on the ascent of Ben Nevis I found my legs just didn't want to go any more. I struggled through the rest of the climb, relying on frequent cans of Red Bull to get me up the steeper bits [1]. It was a painful education in mountain walking technique. I slowed the team down for the rest of the trek. though not so much as the thick fog that descended when we were on Scafell Pike. [3]
Faced with the climb to Namche Bazaar - 600m of steeply ascending switchbacks, in many ways the toughest climb on the way to Everest Base Camp - I remembered my time on Ben Nevis and tried the more traditional technique of finding a pace I could maintain indefinitely, and just keeping on keeping on. It works.
As part of my preparation, I've beenscaring myself stupid mentally preparing myself by reading a number of books on mountaineering. Currently I am reading Nick Heil's Dark Summit, which tells in chilling terms how several climbers were left to die during the 2006 season on Everest. Previous seasons - most notoriously the 1996 one - had seen similarly shocking death tolls [5], but severe weather conditions had always been a contributory factor. In 2006, the weather was cold but clear, stripping bare the truth that, above 8,000m, most individuals are so close to death themselves that they have almost no capacity to help others. By a similar token, it is almost impossible to remove bodies from a mountain. The dead of Everest are mostly still where they fell; some of them have become, in the ghoulish irony of extreme altitude, landmarks in their own right.
Fortunately for me, Aconcagua doesn't take me into quite such rarefied altitudes. There are still a few deaths every year, but from what I have read these are almost exclusively people who are taking proper climbing routes up or cutting short the acclimatisation schedule, or both. I'm not doing either of those. There is still a risk of bad weather, and there's no certainty that I will acclimatise [6], but I am pretty confident of reaching the highest camp and making a bid for the summit. If I make it, it will be a bonus.
High mountains are littered with more than just dead bodies. Discarded equipment - tents, oxygen bottles, unused food - is a real problem on more popular mountains. It had become a particular issue on Aconcagua, and the Argentinian authorities have moved to change that.
A climbing permit for Aconcagua now comes with two numbered plastic bags. On the way back down, you have to hand them back in, full, or face a fine. One is for your rubbish. The other is, well, for your poo. Unpleasant, but better than leaving it exposed on the mountain, I suppose. Top tips, apparently, are to double-bag, and to leave the bag outside overnight so that it freezes. The rhetoric of "take only photographs, leave only footprints" takes on a very different tenor once you get to grips with the practicalities.
p.s. Coming soon - a fundraising prize draw with 5 superb prizes - watch this space.
[1] If you believe, as some do, that Red Bull is essentially pure evil in a can [2], you may shudder to think about what that has done to my immortal soul.
[2] Like the thing in the microwave at the end of Time Bandits, only drinkable.
[3] Visibility dropped to about 10 feet, and the mountain came alive to the sound of emergency whistles as teams tried to locate each other. Armed with a shiny newfangled gadget called a GPS (and they really were new back then - less than a decade ago), our team navigated to the top by OS co-ordinates, and then made the mistake of trusting a team who thought they knew what they were doing on the way down. They might have known in clear weather, but fog plays tricks on you. Another important mountain lesson.
[5] Worth reading about in its own right. Start with Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, but they read the alternative perspective of Anatoli Boukreev's The Climb. Then, if you can, catch the IMAX film "Everest", which was meant to be about Tenzing's son climbing Everest, but ended up being about the 1996 disaster.
[6] Acclimatisation is an inexact science, and can affect the same person in different ways at different times. For instance, Ed Hillary broke some ribs in the assault on Lhotse that was his next big climb after Everest, and thereafter couldn't climb above 6,000m. He never reached the summit of another high mountain again, though he made up for it by driving a tractor across Antarctica, jetboating up the Ganges, and building virtually every public building in the Khumbu region [7]
[7] Including, splendidly, rebuilding the monastery where the 1953 Expedition was blessed (after it burned down due to dodgy electrical wiring), and personally supervising the construction of the region's airport at Lukla. Which, in a fitting touch, was renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport after his death, making possibly the only person in history to have built the airport that is named for him.
Well, thanks once again for your donations. Courtesy of the generosity of Johnathan, James and Steve we are now tantalisingly close to the terra incognita of having to look for summits outside the British isles. Our current total places us comfortably into the realms of the 5 highest mountains in Britain. We're slightly higher than the summit of Sgor an Lochain Uaine (and no, I can't pronounce it either), just shy of the summits of Cairn Toul, Braerich and Ben Macdhui, and quite a way above the point on Ben Nevis when I realised I'd burnt myself out.
About 8 years ago, I did the Three Peaks (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) in an earlier and less ambitious fundraising exercise. Up until that fateful trip, my approach to going up hills had been idiosyncratic, to say the least. I would go very fast for 5-10 minutes, then stop and get my breath back while everyone else in the party caught up. This technique worked very nicely for a long time and even worked for my first experience of proper altitude (an ascent of the 4,095m Mt Kinabalu on Borneo, which we did as part of our honeymoon), but I discovered on Ben Nevis that it relied on one critical assumption: that I was faster than the other people in my party.
The Three Peaks team included a couple of guys who'd recently been trekking in the Andes and who found my supposedly blistering uphill pace quick but sustainable. As a result, I didn't get my usual rest periods and somewhere on the ascent of Ben Nevis I found my legs just didn't want to go any more. I struggled through the rest of the climb, relying on frequent cans of Red Bull to get me up the steeper bits [1]. It was a painful education in mountain walking technique. I slowed the team down for the rest of the trek. though not so much as the thick fog that descended when we were on Scafell Pike. [3]
Faced with the climb to Namche Bazaar - 600m of steeply ascending switchbacks, in many ways the toughest climb on the way to Everest Base Camp - I remembered my time on Ben Nevis and tried the more traditional technique of finding a pace I could maintain indefinitely, and just keeping on keeping on. It works.
As part of my preparation, I've been
Fortunately for me, Aconcagua doesn't take me into quite such rarefied altitudes. There are still a few deaths every year, but from what I have read these are almost exclusively people who are taking proper climbing routes up or cutting short the acclimatisation schedule, or both. I'm not doing either of those. There is still a risk of bad weather, and there's no certainty that I will acclimatise [6], but I am pretty confident of reaching the highest camp and making a bid for the summit. If I make it, it will be a bonus.
High mountains are littered with more than just dead bodies. Discarded equipment - tents, oxygen bottles, unused food - is a real problem on more popular mountains. It had become a particular issue on Aconcagua, and the Argentinian authorities have moved to change that.
A climbing permit for Aconcagua now comes with two numbered plastic bags. On the way back down, you have to hand them back in, full, or face a fine. One is for your rubbish. The other is, well, for your poo. Unpleasant, but better than leaving it exposed on the mountain, I suppose. Top tips, apparently, are to double-bag, and to leave the bag outside overnight so that it freezes. The rhetoric of "take only photographs, leave only footprints" takes on a very different tenor once you get to grips with the practicalities.
p.s. Coming soon - a fundraising prize draw with 5 superb prizes - watch this space.
[1] If you believe, as some do, that Red Bull is essentially pure evil in a can [2], you may shudder to think about what that has done to my immortal soul.
[2] Like the thing in the microwave at the end of Time Bandits, only drinkable.
[3] Visibility dropped to about 10 feet, and the mountain came alive to the sound of emergency whistles as teams tried to locate each other. Armed with a shiny newfangled gadget called a GPS (and they really were new back then - less than a decade ago), our team navigated to the top by OS co-ordinates, and then made the mistake of trusting a team who thought they knew what they were doing on the way down. They might have known in clear weather, but fog plays tricks on you. Another important mountain lesson.
[5] Worth reading about in its own right. Start with Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, but they read the alternative perspective of Anatoli Boukreev's The Climb. Then, if you can, catch the IMAX film "Everest", which was meant to be about Tenzing's son climbing Everest, but ended up being about the 1996 disaster.
[6] Acclimatisation is an inexact science, and can affect the same person in different ways at different times. For instance, Ed Hillary broke some ribs in the assault on Lhotse that was his next big climb after Everest, and thereafter couldn't climb above 6,000m. He never reached the summit of another high mountain again, though he made up for it by driving a tractor across Antarctica, jetboating up the Ganges, and building virtually every public building in the Khumbu region [7]
[7] Including, splendidly, rebuilding the monastery where the 1953 Expedition was blessed (after it burned down due to dodgy electrical wiring), and personally supervising the construction of the region's airport at Lukla. Which, in a fitting touch, was renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport after his death, making possibly the only person in history to have built the airport that is named for him.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Das Boot
If there is one thing in my preparation that is more appealing to me than statistics, it's kit. Few things call to the British male like the siren song of an opportunity to buy new toys, and mountaineering sings it like a particularly delectable version of Mozart's Queen of the Night. High altitude mountaineering doubly so, because altitude gives you an iron-clad excuse for getting tip-top stuff. Better err on the side of quality, because your choice of kit has a big bearing on questions like "Will I succeed or fail?" and "Will any bits of me fall off as a result of frostbite?"
Perversely, there's also a deep satisfaction to be gained from being cheap, as long as you're confident that the stuff you're getting is good enough. Websites were scoured for end-of-season bargains (new kit comes out in the autumn, so the summer is a good time to buy). Teeth were gnashed at the realisation of bargains missed - joining the BMC to get cheap travel insurance could have saved me money at outdoors stores if only I'd waited! Old favourites were revisited (finally an excuse for a new Alpkit down jacket). One notable success was finding a neighbour giving away a pair of Nepalese-made down sleeping bags (they'd traded up to something lighter and in slinkier fabric, but these were warm enough for me).
Throughout it all, there was one nagging doubt: the question of boots. A pair of ordinary walking boots had got me as far as Everest Base Camp (and then fell apart on me on a wet weekend in Snowdonia), but serious altitude demands serious boots. Leather boots freeze at the temperatures we'll experience above base camp and they don't have enough insulation to protect your toes. They also tend to have too much flex to hold on a crampon [1]. Mountaineering boots are instead made of exotic plastics with daft names [2] and come in two pieces. The plastic bit is the outside and is basically bombproof. The other bit is a kind of adult-sized bootee of highly insulating foam that you put on first and then shove into the outer.
One consequence of the two-part construction is that sizing is a bit tricky. Most people find that they need to go up at least one size and I was no exception. Experimentally trying on a pair in Cotswold Outdoors, I could tell within a few painful steps that I was, to paraphrase Chief Brody from Jaws, going to need a bigger boot. That would be size 13, then.
Which made one decision for me. A lot of people rent their boots when they get out to Mendoza. There are lots of gear shops, mountain boots don't need breaking in like walking boots, so why lug a pair half way round the world when you can hire locally? Because you don't want to fly half way round the world only to be defeated because no-one has size 13 boots. That's why.
So began a pilgrimage to Arundel, because when the going gets tough, the tough go to Pegler's. Pegler's, if you've never been there, is expedition kit heaven. It's a specialist outdoor kit shop that has been so (deservedly) successful that it's metastasised along Arundel's arterial roads, sprouting branches known as Pegler's On The Hill, Pegler's Round the Bend and Pegler's Below the Knee [3]. And there I found quite possibly Britain's only pair of size 13 nearly new Scarpa Vega High Altitude boots, plus also a pair of second hand crampons, an ice axe, a pee bottle, a cuddly toy, a teasmade [4] and a new pair of walking boots to replace the ones that fell to pieces in Snowdonia.
I staggered back to my car laden with goodies like a know-it-all child at the end of Crackerjack. Kit acquired. Job done.
Only one problem. A close inspection of the ticket for my flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza reveals a miserly baggage allowance of 15kg (plus 5kg hand baggage). I haven't weighed them yet, but I'm guessing that the boots, sleeping bag and crampons will pretty much do for that. There's only one thing for it. I'll have to travel wearing all my layers at once like a sort of multicoloured Michelin Man.
[1] a vicious concoction of spikes that straps to your extra-stiff mountaineering boot almost exactly like a child's rollerskate and grips snow and ice almost exactly unlike a child's rollerskate.
[2] Imagine, if you will, Ikea's product naming team. Now imagine a team of people sacked by Ikea for their lack of subtlety and wit. And that is how you end up with a brand name like Peebax.
[3] Presumably named by someone whose CV was rejected out of hand by Ikea for wit, subtlety and ability to spell.
[4] No, not really.
Perversely, there's also a deep satisfaction to be gained from being cheap, as long as you're confident that the stuff you're getting is good enough. Websites were scoured for end-of-season bargains (new kit comes out in the autumn, so the summer is a good time to buy). Teeth were gnashed at the realisation of bargains missed - joining the BMC to get cheap travel insurance could have saved me money at outdoors stores if only I'd waited! Old favourites were revisited (finally an excuse for a new Alpkit down jacket). One notable success was finding a neighbour giving away a pair of Nepalese-made down sleeping bags (they'd traded up to something lighter and in slinkier fabric, but these were warm enough for me).
Throughout it all, there was one nagging doubt: the question of boots. A pair of ordinary walking boots had got me as far as Everest Base Camp (and then fell apart on me on a wet weekend in Snowdonia), but serious altitude demands serious boots. Leather boots freeze at the temperatures we'll experience above base camp and they don't have enough insulation to protect your toes. They also tend to have too much flex to hold on a crampon [1]. Mountaineering boots are instead made of exotic plastics with daft names [2] and come in two pieces. The plastic bit is the outside and is basically bombproof. The other bit is a kind of adult-sized bootee of highly insulating foam that you put on first and then shove into the outer.
One consequence of the two-part construction is that sizing is a bit tricky. Most people find that they need to go up at least one size and I was no exception. Experimentally trying on a pair in Cotswold Outdoors, I could tell within a few painful steps that I was, to paraphrase Chief Brody from Jaws, going to need a bigger boot. That would be size 13, then.
Which made one decision for me. A lot of people rent their boots when they get out to Mendoza. There are lots of gear shops, mountain boots don't need breaking in like walking boots, so why lug a pair half way round the world when you can hire locally? Because you don't want to fly half way round the world only to be defeated because no-one has size 13 boots. That's why.
So began a pilgrimage to Arundel, because when the going gets tough, the tough go to Pegler's. Pegler's, if you've never been there, is expedition kit heaven. It's a specialist outdoor kit shop that has been so (deservedly) successful that it's metastasised along Arundel's arterial roads, sprouting branches known as Pegler's On The Hill, Pegler's Round the Bend and Pegler's Below the Knee [3]. And there I found quite possibly Britain's only pair of size 13 nearly new Scarpa Vega High Altitude boots, plus also a pair of second hand crampons, an ice axe, a pee bottle, a cuddly toy, a teasmade [4] and a new pair of walking boots to replace the ones that fell to pieces in Snowdonia.
I staggered back to my car laden with goodies like a know-it-all child at the end of Crackerjack. Kit acquired. Job done.
Only one problem. A close inspection of the ticket for my flight from Buenos Aires to Mendoza reveals a miserly baggage allowance of 15kg (plus 5kg hand baggage). I haven't weighed them yet, but I'm guessing that the boots, sleeping bag and crampons will pretty much do for that. There's only one thing for it. I'll have to travel wearing all my layers at once like a sort of multicoloured Michelin Man.
[1] a vicious concoction of spikes that straps to your extra-stiff mountaineering boot almost exactly like a child's rollerskate and grips snow and ice almost exactly unlike a child's rollerskate.
[2] Imagine, if you will, Ikea's product naming team. Now imagine a team of people sacked by Ikea for their lack of subtlety and wit. And that is how you end up with a brand name like Peebax.
[3] Presumably named by someone whose CV was rejected out of hand by Ikea for wit, subtlety and ability to spell.
[4] No, not really.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Marilyn makes things prominent
Your generosity continues to impress me. Courtesy of Jonathan, Gib, Chris, Adam (who's recently completed a cross-channel charity swim), Paul, Alex and Nini, our fundraising is now into distinctly tartan territory. Not counting Gift Aid, we are about a metre shy of the summit of Beinn a' Bhùird, a Munro in the Cairngorms and the 11th highest mountain in Britain.
The Munros, as you may know, are the mountains in Scotland with a height of over 3000ft, named for a list drawn up by Sir Hugh Munro. I should qualify that by saying that we are talking about absolute height here - that is, the height of the summit above sea level. But that isn't the only measure of height that mountaineers care about. They also deal in the currency of prominence (or relative height).
Prominence is measured by looking at how far you would have to descend before you could start climbing to a higher peak. If that sounds a bit esoteric, we can make it more concrete by thinking about the South Summit of Everest. At 8.,749m, it's actually the second highest summit on Earth - and yet it's not on many people's lists of mountains to climb and the first people to reach it aren't much remembered [1]. The reason is that the summit itself stands only about 10m clear of the southeast ridge. You could probably walk out of your front door right now and find a hill with more prominence in a few minutes. Even if you live in Norfolk.
So, prominence matters to mountaineers, and sufficiently that they have all sorts of lists drawn up around it. There is a list of British mountains with a prominence of at least 150m. They are known as the Marilyns, which tells you a lot about mountaineers' sense of humour.
One consequence of thinking of mountains in terms of prominence is that the list of most prominent mountains is very different from the list of highest mountains. All of the world's really big mountains are part of a group of ranges forming a giant C shape around the Tibetan plateau, and so the "key cols" that you have to descend to before you can start your next ascent tend to be quite high in their own right. Prominence lists tend to prioritise mountains on islands, or the highest points on each continent. K2 is only the 22nd most prominent mountain. Aconcagua, by virtue of lording it over the Americas, is the second most prominent peak.
Sorry about that. I'd intended the prominence discussion to be a brief intro to talking about the kit you need for this sort of expedition, but clearly my British male obsession with statistics has taken over once again. And now it's late, and I have an early flight, so you'll have to wait until next time to hear about size 13 boots, crampon extenders, and why they are a real headache for my baggage allowance.
[1] It was Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon, who reached it as part of the first summit attempt by the 1953 expedition that put Hillary and Tensing on the main summit.
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Training
It should be clear from the basic facts about Aconcagua that you can't get to the top unless you're pretty fit.
To put it in context, with the recent donations from Ian, Rob, Kate and Nick, I've passed the summit of a mountain you've actually heard of (Scafell Pike - the highest in England), but I've only just reached the summit ridge on Snowdon. And Aconcagua is nearly six and a half times higher than Snowdon is.
So, how do you train for a trek to nearly 7,000m?
When I was training for my earlier trek to Everest Base Camp, I joined a gym that had a hypoxic chamber. Inside it, oxygen was chemically removed from the air until it's equivalent to being at about 3000m. I found it fairly easy to cope with. My interval sessions [1] on the Concept II Rowing Ergometer, the instrument of torture of choice for boaties [2] everywhere, were just as horrible outside the chamber as in.
I eventually came to the conclusion that my daily commute was actually pretty good training for the trek. When I can, I cycle to work; 35 minutes in, 35 minutes out, a 15kg load in my panniers and - importantly - a filter mask that keeps out the London smog but also makes me work with a restricted airflow. As the time I was doing this 4 days a week and it stood me in great stead.
This time, I'm going to have to be more inventive. I'm spending 3-4 days a week in Edinburgh, which is not a feasible commute by bike. So I've been cycling into London when I can and thinking of alternative ways to simulate high altitude trekking in a country that is, as far as the Andes are concerned, flat.
Getting on the treadmill in the gym is an OK start; set the gradient as high as it will go, the pace as fast as you can walk and it'll do. But not every hotel has one, and it gets boring after a while. So I've been trying to be more inventive. Here's what I've tried so far:
One thing I'm not doing is anything focused on upper body strength. As a big bloke, I need more oxygen than smaller folks anyway, which is an automatic disadvantage when there's less of it around. More muscle bulk equals more demand for oxygen, so I'm trying not to build up any muscles I don't need.
Any other interesting ideas for training, would be appreciated almost as much as more donations.
[1] The young lady who did my induction wrote "12 x 1 minute on, 30 seconds off x 3 sets" on my training plan. After a few weeks, I admitted that I'd only been able to fit in 2 sets in each of my gym sessions. She vanished with the chart and returned a few minutes later. "I'm very sorry," she said, "I should only have written 1 set." Ouch.
[2] Rowers
To put it in context, with the recent donations from Ian, Rob, Kate and Nick, I've passed the summit of a mountain you've actually heard of (Scafell Pike - the highest in England), but I've only just reached the summit ridge on Snowdon. And Aconcagua is nearly six and a half times higher than Snowdon is.
So, how do you train for a trek to nearly 7,000m?
When I was training for my earlier trek to Everest Base Camp, I joined a gym that had a hypoxic chamber. Inside it, oxygen was chemically removed from the air until it's equivalent to being at about 3000m. I found it fairly easy to cope with. My interval sessions [1] on the Concept II Rowing Ergometer, the instrument of torture of choice for boaties [2] everywhere, were just as horrible outside the chamber as in.
I eventually came to the conclusion that my daily commute was actually pretty good training for the trek. When I can, I cycle to work; 35 minutes in, 35 minutes out, a 15kg load in my panniers and - importantly - a filter mask that keeps out the London smog but also makes me work with a restricted airflow. As the time I was doing this 4 days a week and it stood me in great stead.
This time, I'm going to have to be more inventive. I'm spending 3-4 days a week in Edinburgh, which is not a feasible commute by bike. So I've been cycling into London when I can and thinking of alternative ways to simulate high altitude trekking in a country that is, as far as the Andes are concerned, flat.
Getting on the treadmill in the gym is an OK start; set the gradient as high as it will go, the pace as fast as you can walk and it'll do. But not every hotel has one, and it gets boring after a while. So I've been trying to be more inventive. Here's what I've tried so far:
- A family walk up Box Hill, carrying both my daughters
- A week cycling around Kent with daughter #1 (4, but bigger than some 6 year olds) on the front of the bike. Kent is always much hillier than I remember, but the reward according to the cycle computer was 100 miles ridden, and 9,000 calories burned
- Running up the South and North Castle Wynd in Edinburgh. These steps go from Grassmarket to Castle Terrace. I'm not sure quite how much of a climb that is, but go up them repeatedly on a morning jog and you know you've had a workout
- Walking from Putney to Twickenham for Quins home games (and last weekend to catch a coach to Leicester for the Tigers away game), carrying my son (7 and surprisingly heavy) up the gentle slopes of Richmond Park
- Signing up to help coach said son's mini-rugby team, which commits me to 2 hours of chasing the U8s around the pitch each week.
One thing I'm not doing is anything focused on upper body strength. As a big bloke, I need more oxygen than smaller folks anyway, which is an automatic disadvantage when there's less of it around. More muscle bulk equals more demand for oxygen, so I'm trying not to build up any muscles I don't need.
Any other interesting ideas for training, would be appreciated almost as much as more donations.
[1] The young lady who did my induction wrote "12 x 1 minute on, 30 seconds off x 3 sets" on my training plan. After a few weeks, I admitted that I'd only been able to fit in 2 sets in each of my gym sessions. She vanished with the chart and returned a few minutes later. "I'm very sorry," she said, "I should only have written 1 set." Ouch.
[2] Rowers
Bonus post: it's all Harlequins' fault
Well, maybe not all Harlequins' fault, but they must share in the culpability for tipping me over the edge and agreeing to sign up for this.
To understand why, it might help to understand a little bit about my family's relationship with this ancient and (intermittently) celebrated rugby club. I haven't always been a Harlequins fan. I grew up watching rugby, but only really internationals. Club rugby didn't really enter into it, until Leah, my wife, pointed out that if we were really rugby fans we should probably support a club. So we set out to go to each of the London clubs in the Premiership and see which one we liked the most.
Quins were first, on the basis that it was easy to get from our house to Twickenham. They were at the time a mid-table sort of side, with a cabinet of silverware that included a couple of wins in the 2nd tier European competition (now called the Amlin Challenge Cup) and not much else. But we went along, and enjoyed ourselves, even though we didn't feel like proper fans and were uncomfortable joining in the shouting and singing. At this point, we should have gone to see the other clubs play, but then we realised just how much harder it was to get to them, and bought Quins season tickets instead.
The season in question began with a loss, and then another, and then another. At one point, it seemed as if they could only win when we didn't go to watch them, to the point where a friend and fellow season ticket holder begged us not to go. We stayed away (out of the country for a birthday party in Budapest [1]) for the final match of the season, where the final action of the whole Premiership season - a missed kick - determined that Quins would be relegated.
We followed them through their season in the lower leagues, in the process earning a spot on the "loyalty wall" of fans who had paid the Premiership price for their season tickets rather than accepting a discount. We celebrated as Dean Richards led them back up to the Premiership, and kept them up. The following season, I was posted to India for a year and watched them beat Stade Francais in the freezing rain over a flaky wifi connection in my hotel room [2]. I was there in person when Leinster won by a single point on their way to winning the Heineken Cup (Europe's biggest club trophy), and Dean Richards, through the strategic deployment of a fake blood capsule, left a stain on the club's history that is yet to fade 3 years later. [3]
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that we have supported Harlequins through the lowest and darkest period of their history since the First World War claimed many of their brightest talents.
But if we've seen the low points, we've also seen the highs. 2012 has been a remarkable year for British sport. This year, as Jesse off the Fast Show might have put it, we have been mostly winning things. Wiggins, Murray, McIlroy [4], Ennis, Farah, Hoy, Storey, Weir, Simmonds... the list goes on. But if I could only keep one sporting day, it would be the 26th May. The culmination of the Premiership rugby season. A day that was utterly unique in sporting history.
First, a little more context. Last season began pretty well for Quins. Six wins out of six, top of the table. But oh, said most commentators, other teams have more players away at the Rugby World Cup; they'll soon get overtaken. Six from six became fourteen from fourteen. The first loss, to mighty Toulouse at home, was swiftly avenged with a win in Toulouse a week later. Quins stayed top throughout the regular season, and for the first time made the playoff final. But their opponents were Leicester, who'd finished the season with an equally remarkable winning streak, were the form team and had only ever lost once to Quins in a Premiership game.
The result - Quins streaking to a lead and hanging on to win despite a ferocious Leicester onslaught - was a delight, but there's more. Harlequins' home stadium - The Stoop - is literally a stone's throw from Twickenham Stadium. I'm not aware of any other sporting team who play so close to their national stadium. So Quins did something that, as far as I know, has never been done before. They walked, through an honour guard of cheering fans, from their home ground to Twickers before the game, and afterwards they walked back, as English champions for the first time in their long history, to celebrate with those same fans at the Stoop.
Is it any wonder that euphoria got the better of me?
I was there. Leah was there. Crucially, Jeremy was also there Jeremy is a fellow rugby fan and friend from an earlier trek where we went to Everest Base Camp. Since we got back from that he's spoken on and off about wanting to climb Aconcagua. Earlier this year, he started planning a trip in earnest. 26th May, sat with our beers and reflected glory on the pitch at the Stoop, he and Leah persuaded me that I should go.
So here I am. Jeremy and Leah are at least partly to blame, But mostly I blame Harlequins.
[1] Note: I do not actually have the glamorous jet-set lifestyle that this implies. It's just that one of our friends is actually from a small town near Budapest.
[2] Having found a bar in Beijing that was showing the Aussie Rules Grand Final, I'd assumed that it would be easy to find somewhere to watch rugby in India. Before I flew out, I asked my hotel about it. Two weeks later, they wrote back to me to explain that this was not possible in India. On arrival I discovered why. India has about 11 sports channels, of which at any time 6 will be showing live cricket, 4 will be showing historic cricket, and one will be showing Man United. Fortunately, there's a gadget called a Slingbox that will send pictures from your home tv to a laptop on the other side of the world.
[3] I'm not going to pick over the bones here. Google "Bloodgate" if you don't know what I'm on about, but search Brian Moore's columns in the Telegraph if you want a clear-eyed assessment of the ins and outs of it.
[4] Who doesn't seem sure whether he's British but we will give him the benefit of the doubt.
To understand why, it might help to understand a little bit about my family's relationship with this ancient and (intermittently) celebrated rugby club. I haven't always been a Harlequins fan. I grew up watching rugby, but only really internationals. Club rugby didn't really enter into it, until Leah, my wife, pointed out that if we were really rugby fans we should probably support a club. So we set out to go to each of the London clubs in the Premiership and see which one we liked the most.
Quins were first, on the basis that it was easy to get from our house to Twickenham. They were at the time a mid-table sort of side, with a cabinet of silverware that included a couple of wins in the 2nd tier European competition (now called the Amlin Challenge Cup) and not much else. But we went along, and enjoyed ourselves, even though we didn't feel like proper fans and were uncomfortable joining in the shouting and singing. At this point, we should have gone to see the other clubs play, but then we realised just how much harder it was to get to them, and bought Quins season tickets instead.
The season in question began with a loss, and then another, and then another. At one point, it seemed as if they could only win when we didn't go to watch them, to the point where a friend and fellow season ticket holder begged us not to go. We stayed away (out of the country for a birthday party in Budapest [1]) for the final match of the season, where the final action of the whole Premiership season - a missed kick - determined that Quins would be relegated.
We followed them through their season in the lower leagues, in the process earning a spot on the "loyalty wall" of fans who had paid the Premiership price for their season tickets rather than accepting a discount. We celebrated as Dean Richards led them back up to the Premiership, and kept them up. The following season, I was posted to India for a year and watched them beat Stade Francais in the freezing rain over a flaky wifi connection in my hotel room [2]. I was there in person when Leinster won by a single point on their way to winning the Heineken Cup (Europe's biggest club trophy), and Dean Richards, through the strategic deployment of a fake blood capsule, left a stain on the club's history that is yet to fade 3 years later. [3]
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that we have supported Harlequins through the lowest and darkest period of their history since the First World War claimed many of their brightest talents.
But if we've seen the low points, we've also seen the highs. 2012 has been a remarkable year for British sport. This year, as Jesse off the Fast Show might have put it, we have been mostly winning things. Wiggins, Murray, McIlroy [4], Ennis, Farah, Hoy, Storey, Weir, Simmonds... the list goes on. But if I could only keep one sporting day, it would be the 26th May. The culmination of the Premiership rugby season. A day that was utterly unique in sporting history.
First, a little more context. Last season began pretty well for Quins. Six wins out of six, top of the table. But oh, said most commentators, other teams have more players away at the Rugby World Cup; they'll soon get overtaken. Six from six became fourteen from fourteen. The first loss, to mighty Toulouse at home, was swiftly avenged with a win in Toulouse a week later. Quins stayed top throughout the regular season, and for the first time made the playoff final. But their opponents were Leicester, who'd finished the season with an equally remarkable winning streak, were the form team and had only ever lost once to Quins in a Premiership game.
The result - Quins streaking to a lead and hanging on to win despite a ferocious Leicester onslaught - was a delight, but there's more. Harlequins' home stadium - The Stoop - is literally a stone's throw from Twickenham Stadium. I'm not aware of any other sporting team who play so close to their national stadium. So Quins did something that, as far as I know, has never been done before. They walked, through an honour guard of cheering fans, from their home ground to Twickers before the game, and afterwards they walked back, as English champions for the first time in their long history, to celebrate with those same fans at the Stoop.
Is it any wonder that euphoria got the better of me?
I was there. Leah was there. Crucially, Jeremy was also there Jeremy is a fellow rugby fan and friend from an earlier trek where we went to Everest Base Camp. Since we got back from that he's spoken on and off about wanting to climb Aconcagua. Earlier this year, he started planning a trip in earnest. 26th May, sat with our beers and reflected glory on the pitch at the Stoop, he and Leah persuaded me that I should go.
So here I am. Jeremy and Leah are at least partly to blame, But mostly I blame Harlequins.
[1] Note: I do not actually have the glamorous jet-set lifestyle that this implies. It's just that one of our friends is actually from a small town near Budapest.
[2] Having found a bar in Beijing that was showing the Aussie Rules Grand Final, I'd assumed that it would be easy to find somewhere to watch rugby in India. Before I flew out, I asked my hotel about it. Two weeks later, they wrote back to me to explain that this was not possible in India. On arrival I discovered why. India has about 11 sports channels, of which at any time 6 will be showing live cricket, 4 will be showing historic cricket, and one will be showing Man United. Fortunately, there's a gadget called a Slingbox that will send pictures from your home tv to a laptop on the other side of the world.
[3] I'm not going to pick over the bones here. Google "Bloodgate" if you don't know what I'm on about, but search Brian Moore's columns in the Telegraph if you want a clear-eyed assessment of the ins and outs of it.
[4] Who doesn't seem sure whether he's British but we will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Monday, 17 September 2012
A huge thank you
I was going to make my second post the full story of how I came to be doing this extreme adventure, but that will have to wait while I say a huge thank-you to all those who have supported me so far. It's only been a week since I began fundraising in earnest and you have already helped me raise nearly £900.
And that generosity brings with it even more good news. My employer's charitable foundation will match my fundraising up to a limit of £750. Thanks to your help and deep pockets, I've submitted an application for the maximum matching grant.
The application has to go through an approval process, but I hope to have some great news to share in a couple of weeks' time.
In the meantime, a huge thank you to Jeff, both Andrews, Nick, all three Pauls, Lisa, Dimple, Ed, Donna, Darren, David, Catherine, Vikki, Karen, Jehan, Tim, As, Adrian, Alan, Kathy, Dani, Thomas and Peter for getting me this far.
But there is still further to go. As you know, I'm aiming to raise £1 for every metre I will be above sea level, assuming I make it to the summit. As you may also know, I am the sort of eccentric, statistics-obsessed Englishman who can't quite work out whether he aspires to be like Dave Gorman or is secretly relieved to be slightly less eccentric and statistics-obsessed [1] . So I thought it would be fun to translate the amounts we've raised into where I would be on the map if I were standing at that altitude. There are, of course, two ways we can do this:
(1) Where I would be on the ascent of Aconcagua
(2) Which alternative summit I could stand on if I chickened out and decided to climb that one instead.
Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty person? Or can't you decide? [2] Make up your mind, because it's important. If you're a half-full type, then the exciting news is that I'd already have flown from London to Buenos Aires to Mendoza (760m), collected my park permit (more on that later) and boarded a coach bound for Penitentes, our last hotel stop before the walk begins. Quite exciting.
But if you're half-empty, then that's peanuts compared to where we need to get to. In mountain terms, we're at the summit of Aonach Shasuinn, Creagan na Beinne or Sgurr Dhomhnuill. And no, I hadn't heard of them either. I had to look them up on Wikipedia. Heck, I've been up six mountains higher than that on a wet weekend in Snowdonia. Call that altitude? The Andes don't even dignify anything that low with a name, and neither do the Alps, unless it's an hotel or one of those Tyrolean villages they paint on chocolate boxes.
Frankly, it's not good enough. You shouldn't be sponsoring me to go and climb a British mountain we've never heard of and can't pronounce. Sponsorship demands something more, well, demanding. Like a South American mountain you've never heard of and can't pronounce! Much better. Dig deep, donate, get me off that bus and onto the trail. Penitentes is 2,580m above sea level, so we are over a third of the way to the point where I actually have to start walking for your money.
Thanks for all your support, now and in the future,
Jason
[1] Though I would perhaps be more relieved if I laughed at his jokes at the same time as the rest of the audience, instead of slightly ahead of them.
[2] Or are you, as Gary Larson so perfectly put it, someone who ordered a cheeseburger?
And that generosity brings with it even more good news. My employer's charitable foundation will match my fundraising up to a limit of £750. Thanks to your help and deep pockets, I've submitted an application for the maximum matching grant.
The application has to go through an approval process, but I hope to have some great news to share in a couple of weeks' time.
In the meantime, a huge thank you to Jeff, both Andrews, Nick, all three Pauls, Lisa, Dimple, Ed, Donna, Darren, David, Catherine, Vikki, Karen, Jehan, Tim, As, Adrian, Alan, Kathy, Dani, Thomas and Peter for getting me this far.
But there is still further to go. As you know, I'm aiming to raise £1 for every metre I will be above sea level, assuming I make it to the summit. As you may also know, I am the sort of eccentric, statistics-obsessed Englishman who can't quite work out whether he aspires to be like Dave Gorman or is secretly relieved to be slightly less eccentric and statistics-obsessed [1] . So I thought it would be fun to translate the amounts we've raised into where I would be on the map if I were standing at that altitude. There are, of course, two ways we can do this:
(1) Where I would be on the ascent of Aconcagua
(2) Which alternative summit I could stand on if I chickened out and decided to climb that one instead.
Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty person? Or can't you decide? [2] Make up your mind, because it's important. If you're a half-full type, then the exciting news is that I'd already have flown from London to Buenos Aires to Mendoza (760m), collected my park permit (more on that later) and boarded a coach bound for Penitentes, our last hotel stop before the walk begins. Quite exciting.
But if you're half-empty, then that's peanuts compared to where we need to get to. In mountain terms, we're at the summit of Aonach Shasuinn, Creagan na Beinne or Sgurr Dhomhnuill. And no, I hadn't heard of them either. I had to look them up on Wikipedia. Heck, I've been up six mountains higher than that on a wet weekend in Snowdonia. Call that altitude? The Andes don't even dignify anything that low with a name, and neither do the Alps, unless it's an hotel or one of those Tyrolean villages they paint on chocolate boxes.
Frankly, it's not good enough. You shouldn't be sponsoring me to go and climb a British mountain we've never heard of and can't pronounce. Sponsorship demands something more, well, demanding. Like a South American mountain you've never heard of and can't pronounce! Much better. Dig deep, donate, get me off that bus and onto the trail. Penitentes is 2,580m above sea level, so we are over a third of the way to the point where I actually have to start walking for your money.
Thanks for all your support, now and in the future,
Jason
[1] Though I would perhaps be more relieved if I laughed at his jokes at the same time as the rest of the audience, instead of slightly ahead of them.
[2] Or are you, as Gary Larson so perfectly put it, someone who ordered a cheeseburger?
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Wherefore Aconcagua?
So. Aconcagua. Not the world's most famous, most difficult, or most deadly mountain, or even its biggest. Most people have never heard of it and fewer still can pronounce it. It's a long way away and it takes a long time to climb. You're almost guaranteed headaches, sleepless nights, digestive unrest and some kind of cold-related injury. At the end of all of which, you have about a 30% chance of coming back home and saying "I made it to the summit of Aconcagua" followed by a 95% chance having your friends go "Eh?".
So why do it?
Well, in mountaineering terms, and specifically the sort of lay mountaineering that I go in for, it has a lot going for it. By "lay mountaineering" I mean the an activity that delivers you the views, memories and sense of achievement of real mountaineering but with less of the expense, discomfort and risk of death or hideous injury. In those very specific terms, Aconcagua is pretty much the daddy.
Despite (probably) having once been the Highest Mountain in the World (until those awful nouveau-haut johnnie-come-latelys on the edge of the Tibetan plateau sprung up), Aconcagua's "Normal Route" can be completed without climbing, ropes or ice-axes. You might need crampons if it's snowy on top, and it's sensible to carry an ice axe for emergencies, but when it boils down to it it's a Very Hard Trek rather than a Bona Fide Mountain Climb.
At the same time, while avoiding the technical climbing stuff and the risks that go with it, you can't get to 6,962m (which, by the way, is the amount I'm trying to raise for the NDCS) without encountering a lot of the conditions of really serious mountaineering. The air at the summit is about one-third the pressure of the air at sea level and, as the mountain stands several hundred metres proud of its neighbours, it is buffeted by strong winds off the Pacific. The wind chill can take the temperature on the summit down to -30 celsius. In fact, many climbers use Aconcagua as a way to prepare for climbing in the Himalayas, precisely because you can experience high altitude separately from all the technical climbing.
So, for someone who wants the slog, discomfort and misery of mountaineering without the full complement of bowel-loosening danger, Aconcagua is ideal.
Anyway, that's the post-rationalisation out of the way. The real reason I'm doing it? I blame Harlequins. But more on that next time.
So why do it?
Well, in mountaineering terms, and specifically the sort of lay mountaineering that I go in for, it has a lot going for it. By "lay mountaineering" I mean the an activity that delivers you the views, memories and sense of achievement of real mountaineering but with less of the expense, discomfort and risk of death or hideous injury. In those very specific terms, Aconcagua is pretty much the daddy.
Despite (probably) having once been the Highest Mountain in the World (until those awful nouveau-haut johnnie-come-latelys on the edge of the Tibetan plateau sprung up), Aconcagua's "Normal Route" can be completed without climbing, ropes or ice-axes. You might need crampons if it's snowy on top, and it's sensible to carry an ice axe for emergencies, but when it boils down to it it's a Very Hard Trek rather than a Bona Fide Mountain Climb.
At the same time, while avoiding the technical climbing stuff and the risks that go with it, you can't get to 6,962m (which, by the way, is the amount I'm trying to raise for the NDCS) without encountering a lot of the conditions of really serious mountaineering. The air at the summit is about one-third the pressure of the air at sea level and, as the mountain stands several hundred metres proud of its neighbours, it is buffeted by strong winds off the Pacific. The wind chill can take the temperature on the summit down to -30 celsius. In fact, many climbers use Aconcagua as a way to prepare for climbing in the Himalayas, precisely because you can experience high altitude separately from all the technical climbing.
So, for someone who wants the slog, discomfort and misery of mountaineering without the full complement of bowel-loosening danger, Aconcagua is ideal.
Anyway, that's the post-rationalisation out of the way. The real reason I'm doing it? I blame Harlequins. But more on that next time.
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